Abstract

The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of BaFe₁₂O₁₉ nanoparticles on the microstructure, phase formation and mechanical properties of (Bi,Pb)-2223 superconducting phase. Co-precipitation and solid-state reaction techniques were used to synthesize BaFe₁₂O₁₉ nanoparticles and (BaFe₁₂O₁₉)_x(Bi,Pb)-2223 superconducting samples with , respectively. BaFe₁₂O₁₉ nanoparticles and (BaFe₁₂O₁₉)_x(Bi,Pb)-2223 structures were performed using X-ray diffraction. The morphology of BaFe₁₂O₁₉ nanoparticles and (BaFe₁₂O₁₉)_x(Bi,Pb)-2223 were observed by means of transmission electron microscope (TEM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM), respectively. The experimental results reveal the composition of Bi-2223 phase and traces of Bi-2212 as a secondary phase when compared to the undadded sample. Lattice parameters are not altered with BaFe₁₂O₁₉ addition which indicate that nanoparticles do not enter the host crystal of (Bi,Pb)-2223. Vickers microhardness H_v is measured as function of indentation load and time. It was found that microhardness has a non-linear trend with applied load and time. The experimental results were analyzed using different models. The analysis revealed that the HK model was more suitable than the other approaches in estimating the load independent hardness of the samples.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.